‘He is not just a nobody': Mother of R.I. man with disabilities shot by police begs for answers

Boston Globe

15 hours ago

Regina Socree said she found out her son
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Sebastian Yidana, 28, of Pawtucket, R.I., was shot and wounded by a Pawtucket officer on June 8 while holding a toy gun. Police charged him with two counts of felony assault with a fake gun, on the officer and another person in a separate incident.
Regina Socree
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Yidana has bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which he's been treated for over the past 10 years. His mother has power of attorney to handle his affairs. The doctor called her because Yidana is too ill to understand and make his own decisions, Socree said.
Yidana is hospitalized in police custody, charged on Wednesday with two felony counts of assault with a device like a firearm and disorderly conduct. He is scheduled to be arraigned in District Court on Monday.
'He needs help. He's almost like a child. He needs his mother,' Socree said. 'He is not just a nobody. He is my son.'
Socree said she went to the
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'I need to be with my son. He needs to know that he has his mother out there that cares for him, that wants to be with him,' she said.
Pawtucket State Representative Cherie Cruz and Alexis Morales, the Pawtucket Program Director at Project Weber/RENEW, urged the police to drop the charges against Yidana and explain what happened.
'There has to be a different response than just shoot first and ask questions later,' Cruz said. 'And we need to see the body cameras. We need to know what happened, so we can do better in the future.'
Morales, whose son is autistic and nonverbal, said that incidents like this make him and other parents fear for their children when they encounter law enforcement.
'That fear is real, and it's why I'm standing here today, because there's absolutely no reason, none, why Sebastian, a young Black man known in this community as someone living with mental illness, should have been shot on sight by trained police officers simply for carrying a toy gun,' Morales said.
Pawtucket
The department's use of force policy authorizes officers to use lethal force to protect themselves or others, when the officer has a reasonable belief that an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury exists. The policy says that, when feasible, police officers will identify themselves and state their intent to use lethal force.
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Officer Letourneau has been on the job for a few years and has been a field-training officer. He is on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated by the attorney general's office, state police, and Pawtucket police.
Mayor Don Grebien did not take questions from the media on Friday, but through a spokesman, said the shooting was 'a serious and unfortunate incident.'
'I recognize that this is a difficult time for the family of Sebastian Yidana and my thoughts are with them as he recovers,' Grebien said in a statement. 'I look forward to reviewing the results of the ongoing investigation by the Rhode Island Attorney General's Office, the Rhode Island State Police, and the Pawtucket Police Department. We remain committed to transparency and working closely with our Police Department to ensure that our use of force policies and training reflect the highest standards of safety and responsibility.'
The Pawtucket police have not responded to the Globe's public records requests for police reports, police logs, or the videos from Letourneau's body-worn camera.
When Yidana was a student at Paul Cuffee charter school in Providence, he impressed his teachers with his intelligence and kindness.
'He was an awesome kid, an awesome student, extremely involved in the school,' Megan Thoma, his former humanities teacher, told the Globe in an interview this week. 'He was really an exemplary student. We thought he was going to come back and teach some day.'
Yidana was a sophomore when he finished
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Yidana loved education, and the school staff were touched by his earnestness. 'He's a total sweetheart, a little bit nerdy, and when someone was very sweet to him, you were very happy,' Thoma said.
He graduated from Paul Cuffee School in 2015 and started his first semester at the University of Rhode Island. Around that time, his mother and his former teachers noticed the first signs of mental illness in Yidana.
He dropped out of URI after his first semester, and he has been in and out of treatment since then, his mother said. His former teachers have occasionally seen him out on the street, sometimes carrying a plastic bag of his things, looking like he wasn't taking care of himself.
After hearing about the shooting on Sunday, his former middle school teacher texted Thoma. They scrambled to try to help. 'We're a very small community,' Thoma said. 'He's a kid who is regularly on our minds.'
Yidana, who lives on his own in an apartment on Goff Avenue, near where he was shot, is known in the area. He often visits the library, where he loves to read, and plays basketball at the local YMCA, his mother said.
'He's a good boy. He's quiet. He keeps to himself,' Socree said. 'Most of the people around here do know Sebastian. He's a very kind and giving person.'
Some of the Pawtucket officers know him too, she said, and have interacted with him without problems. A few months ago, Yidana was at the station after an incident, Socree said, and the police arranged with an advocate from Gateway Healthcare to help him.
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'They know he's ill, because they had an encounter with him and he was sent to the hospital,' Socree said. 'Why didn't they try to do it this time? Why didn't they try to find another way to disarm him without shooting him? They could have killed him.'
Amanda Milkovits can be reached at